How parents, educators can empower children

"The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process," educator Barbara Colorose once said. While focusing on 'power' in the word 'empowerment' a number of thoughts come to mind. For some, power is something to die for, while for others, death could be the result of power. Power can be used or abused with 'good intentions'. Whether we like it or not, power of some sort is something we wield or learn to cope with.

Writing about the importance of empowering others might seem like deliberately creating adversaries. Empowerment through encouragement is one of the basic concepts of Adlerian psychology, or as Alfred Adler called it, individual psychology.

J.C McKenna defines empowerment as the building of self-esteem, and a motivation for further training. Today, many speak of lifelong education, which needs lifelong motivation for further training. This is a possible ideal, but are the necessary foundations being laid in primary and secondary schools?

When Adler wrote that "everyone strives for superiority - that is the single motivating force for all living organisms", he was referring to superiority over one's inferiorities. In other words, the desire to move from a perceived minus to a perceived plus situation in everyday experiences.

Encouragement and empowerment from an Adlerian perspective is all about this.

According to Tim Sweeny, encouragement inspires adults and convinces them that they can work on solutions and that they can cope with any predicament.

When it comes to children, Rudolf Dreikurs says every child needs encouragement just as a plant needs sunshine and water. At kindergarten, a child is already experiencing feeling encouraged or discouraged. This happens even before kindergarten age, without parents or carers being aware of it. Fortunately, many parents nowadays seek to learn more about parenting skills, but educational institutions should lead the way.

Parents or educators might believe they are encouraging children by praising them. This might be far from the truth. Another myth we face is the idea of fostering competition in our schools, which could be very discouraging.

Competition brings out the best in products but the worst in people, especially children. Adults who are not discouraged by competition, and have learnt how to handle it, can opt for competitive choices such as in business and sport, but children are still people in training.

All people start out life with a desire to discover, develop mastery, and enjoy life.

So what happens to all this as children develop and grow? Negative attitudes can push a child to think they are useless if the feelings of inferiority that every child experiences are turned into an inferiority complex. Feelings of inferiority in childhood could provide the motivation to learn, achieve and move from a felt minus to a felt plus position.

But for this to happen, children need to be encouraged by parents or carers and educators. Encouragement is both an art and a skill. Encouragement has its own particular language. Appropriate training can help adults working with children to become aware of, and master this important skill.

A discouraged adult cannot effectively encourage a child. Children are very sensitive to this. Another offshoot of discouragement is misbehaviour in children. A misbehaving child is a discouraged child. Maybe here lies the key to handling misbehaviour in a more effective way.

One can only encourage when one feels sure of one's own value and position and when one is confident in one's own ability. A good deal of this depends on one's childhood perceptions, or effective training later on in life. Our parenting culture could be pessimistically biased despite our good intentions, and the consequences are far from pleasant.

An encouraging parent or educator strengthens the worth of a child. I am referring here to actual strength, which needs to be differentiated from potential strength. Emphasising mistakes and shortcomings in children could be viewed by the child as insulting, discouraging and lead to doom.

"Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself," thinker Desiderius Erasmus one said.

A fine line divides praise from encouragement. Praise might be effective in the short term but very often it does not help to boost self-esteem as it depends on someone else's judgment, thus excluding the intrinsic value of self-worth.

A few basic differences can be highlighted here. While praise is a judgment by a third person on the end product, encouragement focuses on the doer and on the effort irrespective of the end result. Encouragement fosters self-esteem and has an intrinsic value while praise can instil fear of not always being able to live up to others' expectations, irrespective of effort.

Political and spiritual leaderMahatma Gandhi once said: "We must become the change we want to see."

We are not responsible for choosing our parents or the environment we are brought up in but we are responsible for what we make of our life and ourselves. Adler wrote that life is not being but life is becoming. So lifelong learning is a responsibility and a right.

The Malta Adlerian Psychology Association is organising two public lectures by Marion Balla on February 23 at Le Méridien St Julian's.

The first talk, entitled 'Family living: fun or friction?', will be held from 9.30 to 11.30 a.m., while the second, titled 'Leading your life with balance and humour' will be from 5.30 to 7.30 p.m.

There will be free childminding (and children may come in their Carnival costumes).

To book, phone 2148 8798, 2144 4295, 7947 4849, or 9986 6371, e-mail: mirt@maltanet.net, or come to the registration desk half an hour before the talk starts.